Meditating on Bees

I did a hive check today. I hadn’t done a thorough inspection since I’d installed both my packages of bees. The good news was my local hive split and my Russian hybrid bees both looked good with lots of brood.

Here’s a nice picture of the Russian queen. She still has her tag on so she was super easy to spot and since she was on a very light piece of beeswax, photographed well.

The bad news was the Buckfast bees. I could find no sign of the queen. The only brood, of which there was very little, was only drone brood. There was one queen cell that I couldn’t tell if it had been used or not. I have no idea what happened to her. She was healthy and fine the week after I let her out of the queen cage. The only explanation would be she died or the hive swarmed. Clearly only left with a laying worker though. I moved two frames of brood over from the Russian hive. They will make a queen cell and it will be alright in the end but it sets the Russian hive back a week and the Buckfast hive back a month. I’m a beekeeper, it’s the end of June and I’m out of honey so I’m grasping. It will not be a very productive year. Deep breaths. Meditating on bees requires equanimity.

My mom got me this book for my birthday and I remembered it today. Added it to the pile to read this month. I need the reminder of how to keep bees like a yogi.

Meditation has been on my mind lately. It’s an area of my practice that could definitely be strengthened. I signed up for the 8 week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction meditation course. This week will be my first session. I’ll be commuting to take the course so it’s a big commitment but I think it’ll be very valuable for me. I set up a meditation corner to encourage my daily practice. Meditating on bees doesn’t really qualify as a single point of focus nor being mindful in my body but it does help me enjoy the hives with equanimity for the trials of being a beekeeper.

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I've been practicing yoga for over 25 years. Because of my health struggles, I'm passionate about helping people with health challenges thrive in spite of their diagnoses. It makes my day to introduce someone to yoga for the very first time or make yoga more accessible to under served audiences. My basic needs include tea and books.